We've recently seen an influx of interesting microATX cases, particularly from SilverStone and Lian Li, but the overall selection is still very poor, especially when it comes to towers. It's an unfortunate reality that you can have your pick of more than a dozen solid feature-rich ATX towers for US$100, while there might be only a couple of microATX models worth considering for the same price. We've always felt that microATX has been under-appreciated given how many high-end ATX builds have just a single hard drive and graphics card stuffed into a laughably big case  what a waste of space!

The package.

The Define R2/R3 ATX tower has been very successful, the flagship product of the fledgling Swedish manufacturer Fractal Design. We would describe it as a budget jack-of-all-trades type case with a classy minimalist look and silencing features reminiscent of the Antec P180. The Define Mini is essentially the microATX version, with only a few minor changes. There's a big hole in the microATX market for a simple chassis with all the trappings and conveniences of a modern ATX tower and the Define Mini might just fill it.

The Define Mini.

The Define Mini is truly, almost literally, a smaller version of the Define R3. From the outside it's difficult tell them apart  the R3 is two inches taller and one inch deeper and has two fan placements on the ceiling rather than one. The Mini is only available in black with no white, silver, or grey option at the moment. Inside, the case has space for four expansion slots, six hard drives, two optical drives, six fans (two included), and supports front USB 3.0.

Accessories.

Inside the accessory box we found a bag of screws and standoffs, an external 3.5" drive adapter, a pair of reusable zip-ties, and a a manual fan speed controller that fits in a PCI expansion slot, complete with a molex power cable and a three-way 3-pin fan splitter.